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Dish, Nagoya. Museum no. 595-1875

In 1875 the Museum purchased this, the second of two dishes, for £3.8s.6d from the London-based East and West India Dock Company. Apart from their relative sizes, it is difficult to explain the disparity in the prices paid for this and the previous dish - though it is interesting to note that when Ando Jubei visited the V&A in 1910 he pronounced the former to have been made by Kaji Sataro, son of Kaji Tsunekichi. The dish is decorated with a central roundel of a butterfly and flowers, perhaps dandelion (Japanese: tampopo), contained within another roundel. The surface of the dish is divided into panels containing floral motifs with finely applied wires delineating abstract cloud motifs. These small conventional shapes help contain the enamels during the firing process.